Following a May 2026 Celtics game, Joe Mazzulla stated, "We're always going to play to the strengths of the roster that we have. I think it's the best way to be able to do that... We go out and get five big men that can post, we'll post it every single time... we'll do whatever we got to do to win".
I?ve said this many times. This is how Brad wants the team to play. He built the roster to shoot 3s. Look at the trade deadline move. Stretch 5 who is not good defensively. When Brad was coaching the team shot a lot of 3s. They did so with Ime and now with Joe. This is how Brad wants them to play and he is the one who needs to change his philosophy. If Joe wasn?t doing what Stevens wanted, he wouldn?t be here.
But again, it?s the extremes and lengths he goes to in employing this philosophy with no literal backup plan. It?s the reason he?s underachieved in 75% of his playoff runs thus far, because he?s too dogmatic and stuck in his ways to adjust. He doesn?t seem to appreciate that shot variance versus expected fg% in a seven game series is not the same as in the full regular season.
You can?t tell me that Brad is onboard with that plan. He was always a master tactician and would adjust as needed when that was what was called for.
Brad is on board with the plan, as he created the plan. Stevens built the roster to shoot 3s and has said in the past that he believes this is the best way to play.
His press conference today sounded a lot different than that. Think there has been some realization that you cannot play that way in the playoffs.
I just hope it?s not too late. This group should have multiple championships. Tatum and Brown I mean. Now I think it?s different. Changes are coming
I think Brad knows they are not good enough as is.
I?m sure he knows? he probably knew at the start of the season, and he knew at the trade deadline, which is why he only got Vucevic and probably because he?s a $21 million expiring (expired now) and why they went through all those financial gymnastics with ten-day contracts to get under the luxury tax. I?m sure he appreciated the overachievement, but they all knew that it wasn?t sustainable because his actions were still very cautious. The role players significantly over achieved, Jaylen passed the test as a No1 option but end of day we still only had 3 shot creators on the team - the Jays and PP.
He also knows that there?s not much he can do this off-season that will make them a serious contender next season, because they have to be under the tax another season, but the plan is to see which of these role players are going to be good enough to be extended in 2027. That?s when the wallets are gonna be opened.
By the way, a straight up Giannis for Brown trade will still allow us to be under the tax and as long as we don?t spend more than an additional 13 million using our Simons TPE or the non taxpayer MLE.
This is what I think the philosophy will be next year - reset the repeater tax and then spend for the following seasons. The crappy part is knowing another year of the J's prime is essentially going to waste and there being no guarantee he'll have the assets needed to bring in more talent to improve the roster after next season. there's no real assets to move in terms of players to trade except JB and White but those are the types of players you need to be adding, not removing, and the draft capital is minimal --> they only have their own picks going forward and not all of them either.
What I have a sinking feeling about is that we're more likely to see a sell off of our best players for youth and draft picks because Brad won't see or have an avenue to reload the roster like he was able to do for the 2024 title run.
My gut feel on this is that Brad doesn't seem to value draft picks to rebuild as much as trades, certainly not as much as Ainge did, or most fans seem to. He's consistently used first round draft picks in trades for established players.
And he had this to say about tanking as a path to a rebuild:
Count Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens among the prominent figures who believe the NBA needs to find a solution to the tanking problem.
Stevens said Tuesday night that he is ?a huge proponent of doing everything we can to make sure that every night is as competitive as humanly possible.?
?There?s nothing like the competitiveness and the energy and the talent that you see on the court in these playoffs,? Stevens said. ?The more we can get every game to be incredibly meaningful to every team is really important, in my opinion.?
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7179674/2026/04/07/brad-stevens-nba-tanking-issues/
I think what we will see is more of a reset, like this season, than tanking for picks. You could hardly call this year a tanking year. But I think he, unlike us who don't have actual skin in the game, understands that not every year can be a taxpaying, over-the-aprons year, certainly not a 10-year player prime window, so he has to align his big spending windows with maximizing the team's contention for a championship. He wants the team to be competitive on an ongoing basis, not in boom-or-bust cycle of contention then tank then contention. But I don't think he plans to tank for picks - he seems to prefer known commodities rather than "maybes" in the draft.
But I can understand being frustrated...we all want to see the best team, all the time. It's just tough to do with in this CBA era. Like OKC had a couple of years of cheap payroll, next season they will be paying $213m in tax and will be over the second apron.
